The Valar's Jest
by Bawks
Summary: Classic story of a twenty-something year old girl who falls into Middle-Earth and falls in love. Lorelei, a hopeless LOTR fan, finds herself on the outskirts of Lothlorien, and found by our favourite Marchwarden. Three guesses as to what happens next!


Galadriel walked slowly, barefoot through the forest of Lorien. Smiling kindly at the elves she saw in passing, she walked towards the sunset, and to her mirror. The night was warm and inviting, and the Lady of the Wood shed her cloak as she bent over the glassy pool of water. Gazing into depths of the mirror, she peered into the future, and saw nothing. The ripples in the water bounced off the edge of the basin, and still, the mirror remained blank, save for the reflection of the elleth staring into it. Galadriel, uneffected and used to the mirror's peculiarities, switched her focus to the present.

For a while, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. She saw the waterfalls and towers of Rivendell, the dark forests of Mirkwood, the White City of Gondor, and she saw her own realm: the patrols between the mallorn trees, the horses in the stables, and then she looked to the borders of her realm.

On the very edge of the forest, she saw a dark figure lying motionless in the long grass of the field. Upon closer inspection, she saw the figure of a female. Concerned and curious about this strange creature, she left her mirror in a hurry.

Back in Caras Galadhon, she set upon locating the home of the Marchwarden. She knocked lightly on the door of the simple talan,

"Marchwarden, I am sorry to wake you." she said simply as the Marchwarden opened the door,

"It is no matter, my lady. How may I be of service?" he answered groggily, surpressing a small yawn. He had just fallen asleep when the lady woke him. After a long week patrolling the borders, he had been eager to rest.

"I have a request for you, Haldir. I was gazing into the mirror this evening, when I saw a female, elf of human, I could not tell, lying in the field just outside our borders. I fear that harm may befall her if I were not to send after her until morning. It would be much appreciated if you," she paused for a moment, the corner of her mouth curling into a small smile, "or perhaps one of your wardens, could go fetch the poor thing, lest some harm come to her."

Haldir pondered the request for a moment. As tired as he was, his curiosity had been piqued. Why was such a maiden lying unconscious in the fields? However, he could not deny that in the state he was in, it would do him no good to go alone,

"I will go myself, my lady. I will ask if Rumil will accompany me, for I fear I may fall asleep on my horse."

The lady smiled at him gratefully. She expressed her thanks, and then set off to her own grand talan, prepared to meet their new guest in the morning when Haldir returned. Haldir haphasardly pulled on a pair of travelling breeches, and a sturdier tunic, and set off to find his brother, Rumil. Something inside of him said that this would be a night he would not very soon forget.

* * *

"Sailors fighting in the dance hall! Oh, man! Look at those cavemen go. It's the freakiest show."

This is what the radio blared into Lorelei's ears as her alarm went off at six in the morning. Grumbling, she got out of bed, and all but stomped into the washroom too take a shower. As she was lathering her washcloth, she sang along with the chorus of David Bowie's 'Life on Mars',

"Is there life on Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaars?" she sang, albeit very poorly, into the bar of soap serving as a microphone in her hand. Finishing up in the shower, and combed through her long brown hair, trying desperately to take out the tangles without permanently damaging her scalp. It was a problem no great amount of condition could ever fix. Drying it carelessly upside-down with the blow-dryer, she skipped the makeup this morning, and threw on a simple, and comfortable grey skirt and black t-shirt.

Lorelei wanted to get to school early this morning, with the hopes of running into her favourite professor, Nathan Bratler. Apart from being devilishly good looking, he taught her favourite class, History of Arda.

Yes, it was exactly what it sounded like. A class that was focused entirely on the works of Tolkien, and his wondrous world that was Arda. In this class, she has read the Silmarillion, the Lord of the Rings, and the Unfinished Tales. These novels, of course, being books that she had dog-eared back at home already.

A self-professed Tolkien fanatic, this class had been Lorelei's dream. The fact that it was taught by a young professor who was not five years older than her 20 year-old self, only heightened her love for it. When she wasn't in her dorm, pooring over her notes or homework, she was dreaming of Middle-Earth, and the life she yearned to have in her very own hobbit-hole with Nathan Bratley.

She pondered the shade of Nathan's hair, and the exact colour of his deep-set blue eyes as she walked across campus, into the obscure and small fifth building of the college. As she dreamily climbed the stairs into the old building, she ran head-first into...guess who?

"Oh, Lorelei, you should watch where you're going!" the stern warning was accompanied with a light and cheeky tone of voice. There was a lilt of an Irish accent hovering on his words as he spoke, the voice was unmistakeable. The voice belonged to none other than Nathan Bratley, peering down at Lorelei with a grin on his face,

"I...I was just...Oh...Yes, sorry about that." she stuttered. Nathan's eyes sparkled as she scrambled to collect the textbooks that had fallen out of her bag. He helped her pick these up, and as he did, his hand grazed her own ever so slightly. The rush that accompanied the small touch was enough to send Lorelei into a fits of jitters,

"I was just coming to see you in your office. I finished the Silmarillion again last night before bed, and I had a lot of questions. I thought about writing them down and e-mailing them to you, but then I thought that you might not want your inbox flooded with my questions, so I wrote them down on this sheet of paper for you to look at before class, but then I thought that you might be really busy, and might not have the time to take a look at them, so I tried to narrow them down..."

She continued to babble inceasantly like this, until finally she realized that she'd been talking for just over two minutes non-stop. She paused for a breath, and it was at this time that Nathan chose to respond to her request,

"That's uhm...No' a problem at all, Lorelei. I was just on me way out to get a cup of coffee, if you'd like to wait inside me office, I'll be back directly, and we can go over those questions, if you'd like."

And with that, he excused himself, and was out of her sight before she could even respond. With a sigh, she finished collecting her things off the steps, and made her way to his office without once stopping to look at the signs. She had been there dozens of time in the past. When she reached his office, she walked right in, and sat in her usual spot across the desk. Feeling foolish for her babbling earlier, she could not sit still. Instead, she got up and began to pace, going over her questions in her head. Absent-mindedly, she began to examine the oddities on Nathan Bratley's shelves and tables. She saw many knick-knacks, ranging from small ornamental boxes, to little figurines of woodland creatures and fairies. As she made her way around the room, she paused briefly on an ornately carved wooden box of a very strange, nearly grey wood.

She looked around the room carefully before opening the lid of the box. It would be very embarassing indeed if Nathan was to come back and see her snooping through his personal things. Still, the beautiful carvings on the case could not be ignored. The lid was adorned with leaves and branches, all intertwined into the shape of a great silver-grey tree. Admiring the lid, she set it down on the table that the box rested on. Inside, she found folds of a silvery-blue velvet cloth, clearly covering something within the box. Gently, she lifted one small corner of he velvet cloth, and peeked into the box.

The small dagger concealed under the velvet was beautiful. The blade was made of a shinning silver metal that nearly glowed in the faint sunlight of the dusty office. The handle of the blad was made of glass, or maybe even crystal, and radiated an almost sparkling quality. She took the blade out of the box, careful not to break the delicate handle. Turning it very carefully in her hands, she admired the craftsmanship of the weapon. She was enraptured by the dagger, so much so that she did not notice Nathan returning with two cups of coffe, one for Lorelei, and one for himself,

"Lorelei! Please, put that away!" he exclaimed, as he saw what she was holding in her hands. Startled by his abrupt exclamation, the dagger slipped out of her hands, leaving a small but stinging cut at the base of her thumb. She hissed quietly at the pain, and exclaimed when she heard the dagger shatter on the hardwood floor of Nathan's office. Staring blankly at the pieces of shattered glass on the floor, she watched as her blood trickled down her fingers, and dripped silently on the pieces of the beautiful weapon she had just broke.

"Oh, Nathan, I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have been looking at your things, and now it's broken...God, I'm so sorry. I'll fix...I'll pay for it, anything!" she trailed off at the end, not knowing how to express her apologies further. Nathan set the coffees down on his desk, looking clearly upset by the mishap.

"I won't lie to you and say it's okay, Lorelei, but I can see that it was an accident. Come, let me look at your hand." he motioned for her to sit down, and she did so, meekly. Feeling like a child who had just misbehaved, she bowed her head as he tended to her hand. When he was done his ministrations, he asked her about her questions, which she relayed with much less vigor than before, and set off to her first class.

Later that night, Lorelei could be found lying in bed going over the day's events with a sad look on her face. With a sigh, she turned off the light on her bedside table, and went to sleep.

* * *

Haldir and Rumil were chatting animatedly as they rode through the forest of Lothlorien in the middle of the night. It was nearing dawn at this point, and they rode without fear. The border guards would be watching the forests of Lorien as they went on their search for this mysterious female, and so they talked about Haldir's work as Marchwarden, and of Rumil's home life with his wife, Limwen, and his two sons. The two brothers continued merrily on their way until finally, the field was in sight,

"She should be close by, the lady said. Keep a wary eye, brother.", Haldir advised as they crossed onto the field.

It did not take long to find the girl, lying not twenty feet from where they first exited the forest. She was dressed very peculiarly, in loose breeches of a strange blue and grey checked pattern, and a very revealing sleeveless top. Her brown hair was sprawled around her shoulders; she was clearly fast asleep.

Trying to avert his eyes from her chest and shoulders, Haldir tried to pick the girl up,

"Rumil, can you ready the horse? Just remove the saddle, I'll ride with her bare ba-" he was abruptly cut off by a sharp jab by the girl's elbow in his ribs,

"Get off me! Don't touch me!" she exclaimed loudly. Haldir looked her, still a little pained by her blow to his ribs,

"I am the Marchwarden of this realm. And who might you be?" he asked, but she was already staring at his with a horrified look in her eyes. Her facial expression suddenly changed, and she laughed,

"That's amusing.", she scoffed sarcastically, "Who are you really? Is this some kind of joke?" Haldir looked at her, puzzled for a moment. Rumil stood back, admiring the situation. It was not every day that he saw his brother injured by an semi-conscious female.

"I do not jest, I am the Marchwarden of Lothlorien, my name is Haldir." he replied, a perfectly serious expression on his face. She scrutinized his face, looking for traces of a lie in his eyes. Upon finidng none, her body went limp, and she fainted. Haldir looked to Rumil with a sigh, "Well, this will make the trip back to Caras Galadhon simpler."

Rumil chuckled, and helped Haldir set the girl in front of him on the horse. As he steadied her on the horse, his hand brushed over her ear, revealing the pointed tip,

"I wonder where she is from, she does not look like an elleth from Imladris, and Mirkwood is quite a ways away."

"The lady will know, surely. Come, Rumil, let us get going. I greatly desire to see my bed before the Lady requests something else of me."


End file.
